A Difference of Opinion
by xcrysto
Summary: He smashed the button again repeatedly, willing the lift to hurry up. "I want a divorce," he spat out.


_Hello sweeties, this is something slightly different to the usual tone of my stories, everything I've written so far for this fandom has been fairly light-hearted and humorous. The setting is lightly inspired by watching AK in Croupier on telly the other night, the actual story I have no idea where it came from but once I had the idea I had to write it just to see where it went and how it would be if these two had a fight. Not sure how I feel about the outcome, I'm hoping you lovely people can help me with that : )_

_Set earlyish-mid timeline for both of them._

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><p>"I know Rory," Amy was saying as the couple stroll down one of the Tardis corridors towards the console room. "But it <em>looked<em> like an English Sheepdog when I decided to pet it okay?"

"We were on a planet a billion miles away from earth Amy, whatever made you think it could have been -"

They both stopped short as they reached the entrance to the console room and quickly noticed three things; River was there, her gun was aimed at the Doctor, and they both looked very, _very_ angry.

"Um -" Amy stuttered but Rory put a hand on her arm, silencing her quickly.

"Look," The Doctor was saying, clearly struggling to keep his voice calm. "Just put down the gun River, we need to talk about this , but we can't do that when you're aiming a weapon at my head."

Her face steely, she doesn't move.

"River," he growls. "We need to _talk_, just drop the gun!"

"I think you've done enough_ talking _Doctor." The click echoes round the console room as she unlocks the safety.

"Woah, woah - River!" Amy and Rory both make exclamations of panic, their hands up in a stopping motion.

Their daughter's eyes flicker briefly to them before snapping back to the Doctor.

"Look, River," Rory tries to be calm, inching towards her, his hands still held out. "I don't know what's happened but the gun isns't going to help anything, I think you should just put it down."

"It will help if I kill him," she hisses, not taking her eyes off the Doctor.

"River," Amy tries. "You're not going to kill him…"

"I wouldn't be so sure," the Doctor mutters, swallowing a bit.

"Neither would I, _sweetie."_

"My God, what the hell happened?" Amy demands.

The Doctor swallows and River clenches her jaw, her grip around the gun tightening.

_Five hours earlier…_

The Doctor had been surprised to find River's cell empty when he'd materialised in Stormcage. It wasn't that he was surprised she'd escaped, hell, he knew she could walk out with her eyes closed, it was just that he thought _he_ was usually the one to whisk her away - or that she only escaped to see him. Then it occurred to him that she very well could be off with another him somewhere, and that she probably was, and just for curiosity's sake (and spoilers be damned - he would only sneak a glance) he decided to follow her.

His sonic quickly picked up on the recent use of a vortex manipulator in the atmosphere (so she _had_ got out on her own) and it wasn't hard to hone in on it, programme the data into the Tardis and have her track and follow it's journey. He was mildly intrigued to step out into a casino, nineteen eighties by the looks of it, probably somewhere in Las Vegas but maybe it was London. He walked through the bustling room, the aroma of alcohol and smoke in the air and the gentle sound of soft music and chatter filling the room. A barman asked him if he'd like a drink and he politely refused. His accent had been a smooth drawl; definitely Las Vegas then.

He spotted River quickly - she was never hard to miss. His breath may have caught slightly at the sight of her in a devastating black floor length dress, a split running all the way up one side with it plunging dangerously low at the front yet still managing to look classy and elegant. Her curls were piled high on her head and her make up flawless.

He watched her take her seat at a table and receive a pile of chips. He raised his eyebrows at that - he'd never taken her for much of a gambler. She hadn't been seated long when a gentleman sat down next to her, placing a drink in front of her and joining the game. River raised a painted eyebrow at him but accepted the drink and the two appeared to fall into easy conversation between the game.

The Doctor turned briefly back to the barman. "Actually, think I will have that drink."

Leaning back against the bar, the Doctor accepted the scotch and watched the scene play out on the other side of the room with narrowed eyes.

What started as polite conversation over the game, quickly became more involved, until the Doctor would go so far as to say it was downright flirting. After about fourty-five minutes (in which, he may be slightly proud to have observed, River had almost wiped out every other player at the table), the two got up, collected their winnings and left the table. As invited, River took a seat on a small private table in a corner and the man crossed over to the bar. The Doctor turned round, hunching round his drink as the man walked up beside him and signalled the barman over who was currently busy serving others.

"'Scuse me, can I get some service here?" He demanded after a moment, slapping the bar. "Jeesh can you believe this, understaffed." He grumbled to the Doctor.

"Hm." He grunted in reply.

Apologising, the barman hurried over and the man ordered a straight whiskey and an apple martini. The Doctor scoffed quietly; River would rather have the whiskey.

"Having a lucky night?" He commented bitterly when the man slapped down a fifty dollar note on the bar.

"What? Oh, yeah, it's been alright," he replied as he waited for his change. "Hoping to get luckier yet though." He nudged the Doctor and with a wry smirk, nodded over to where River was sitting in the corner, re-applying her lipstick in the little hand mirror she held. It took all his self control not to punch the man in the face - and the Doctor had never been a violent person.

He clenched the glass in his hands and made some noncommittal noise in response and the man accepted his change and taking the two drinks, left the bar.

The Doctor downed his scotched and ordered another one as he watched the man take a seat a little too close to River. Not that she seemed to mind, he observed as she accepted the drink with a smile and sipped at it, batting her eyelashes over the rim of the glass and then laughing at something the man said.

The Doctor had never been a jealous person, but surely, he thought to himself, any man would feel slightly _hurt_ at seeing their wife blatantly flirt with some handsome stranger. Granted, he and River didn't exactly have a conventional marriage, but they were still married and didn't that mean that in some way this sort of thing was off-limits?

Well, he reasoned as he sipped his drink, he was probably being ridiculous; River Song was a natural flirt, and he shouldn't expect her to change who she was. Hell, she'd flirted with other people in front of him before and it hadn't bothered him like this was. It was something in the way she was leaning in…in the promise in her eyes. He watched as the man's hand dropped to her leg and slid up her thigh, bare through the slit in her dress and River did nothing to stop it. She smiled and he swore she parted her legs a little as the man's hand slid up further than the slit in the dress…the Doctor swallowed hard and then let out a breath in relief as, taking hold of the man's wrist, she moved his hand away. But she didn't let go, she leant in to whisper something in his ear and the man smiled at her and lifted her hand to press a kiss to her knuckles before standing. He brushed his coat off, and took something out of his pocket - a small key - which he waved and her and held out a hand to her. Well - of course she wouldn't _actually_ go with him, would she.

But the Doctor nearly choked on his drink when River accepted the hand with a sultry smile and together the two left the room. Slamming his drink down on the bar, he stood and marched off after them, frantically trying to find a reasonable explanation in his head for what was happening. Perhaps he was driving her home? In the lobby, they turned for the elevator instead of the front door and the Doctor swallowed. Well, maybe she was staying here too, in a room of her own. Or - or maybe this was early for her! Maybe he and she hadn't…he quickly cut dead that train of thought; she'd come from Stormcage, this was late enough.

He watched them enter the lift, and watched what floor number the man pushed. The Doctor took the next one, and arrived on the ninth floor just in time to see the two disappear into a room and the door click shut behind them.

Numbly, he walked up the corridor to stand in front of the door and he pressed his palm against it, letting his forehead fall forwards onto the wood. A few moments later, a quiet unmistakable throaty moan - _River's_ throaty moan, made him back away from it. He backed up until he hit the opposite wall and slid down to the floor where he let his head fall into his hands, elbows on his knees.

He didn't know how long he sat there, debating whether to leave and never come back, to come back in the morning to confront her - or to break the bloody door down and do it now - (the last had never been likely to happen but it felt good to entertain the idea that he _might_) but it didn't feel like that long of a time until he heard the sounds of footsteps right the other side of the door, and muffled voices. He sprang to his feet and watched with wide eyes as the door opened and a figure slipped out backwards. River waggled her fingers before closing the door softly and turning round.

She gasped loudly, jumping and holding a hand to her chest in surprise. "Doctor!" She exclaimed.

He glared. "Having a nice night?" He managed to ask.

She raised an eyebrow. "Yes actually, quite enjoyable." She cocked her head at him. "Fancy seeing you here."

He nodded towards the room she'd just left. "Who's that?"

She shrugged, a small smirk on her lips. "No-one important."

The Doctor's eyebrows shot up. "So you don't deny it then?"

"Deny what?"

He gave her a hard look and then turned, marching away from her down the corridor.

"Sweetie?" She called, hurrying after him to fall into step with him. "What are you doing here? And deny what?"

He stopped abruptly, turning to look at her. "You were just with someone, weren't you? In that room - a man?"

Another shrug. "I might've been." She laughed. "But if I'd known you were going to show up honey I wouldn't have bothered." She ran a hand up his jacket with a smile which quickly faded when he shoved her hand away roughly, stepping back from her. She frowned in confusion. "Doctor?"

He spun and started marching away again, unable to fathom how she could be standing here, not even attempting to deny what she'd just done - or even apologise! It was like she didn't think it was wrong. He reached the elevator and slammed his hand on the button angrily.

"Doctor?" She repeated, catching up with him. "What's wrong with you?"

He smashed the button again repeatedly, willing the lift to hurry up. "I want a divorce," he spat out.

"You - _what!"_ She spluttered.

"I _want," _another slam, "a divorce."

She was silent a moment. "Are you joking?" She asked coldly, "because that's not funny."

"No." The lift finally pinged and he stepped inside with River hurrying in after him.

"What the hell are you on about?" She demanded, standing in front of him with her hands on her hips. "Have I done something - have we had some sort of row in the future, because that's not _fair."_

"No, not the _future_ River," he snapped back, his arms folded as he pointedly didn't look at her. "The past, your very recent past, actually. About three minutes ago your past to be precise."

She gaped at him for a few seconds. "What?"

"You just cheated on me River!" He blurted out.

"I didn't cheat on you!" She claimed, aghast.

"So you're telling me I _didn't_ just see you go into and then an hour later come out of a hotel room with another man? Or are you trying to tell me the two of you were just playing charades?"

"Sweetie," she laid a hand on his arm, shaking her head. "That was just sex, it doesn't mean anything."

"Just - !"

"I don't _know_ him Doctor, he's just some nobody I met earlier tonight, I promise."

With eyebrows so high they nearly reached his hairline he turned his head to stare at her incredulously. "How does that make it okay…?"

"What? Make _what_ okay? Are you telling me I'm not allowed to sleep with anyone?"

"I shouldn't have to _tell _you!" He shouted, and the lift pinged and opened in the lobby and he marched out with her hot on his heels.

"Why? I don't understand why you're so angry about this Doctor, I told you it didn't _mean_ anything!" They were making a scene but neither could care.

"We're married River!"

"So? Just because I married _you_ doesn't mean I've sworn off men!"

The Doctor turned a sharp corner and stormed down a quiet corridor, where the Tardis was settled just outside the doors to the casino. He threw open the doors and marched inside.

"Don't you dare fly away from me! Doctor!" The doors slammed in her face just as she reached them, and when she grabbed for the handle it was gone, an empty space where the box had just been. She let out a cry of frustration and yanked her handbag open, rummaging angrily though it until she pulled out her vortex manipulator.

Tracking him was easy, getting inside was harder than usual, either he or the Tardis had the shields up full force and it took some hacking to break her way through.

She arrived in the console room with a pop, crackles of energy surrounding her. The Doctor whirled to face her from where he stood by the console. "How did you get through?" He demanded.

"You don't get to walk away from me like that Doctor - not after that - and you better tell me what the hell you think gives you the right to be so angry at me."

"You're my wife, River, and I just found you in bed with another man - I think that gives me every right!"

"Don't give me that, you know as well as I do that we don't live together in some terrace house, paying bills and playing happy families -"

"What's that got to do with anything? We got married River, and I don't remember at any point agreeing to an open relationship!"

"I don't remember you or me agreeing to _any_ relationship - we might have got married Doctor but the times I see you are few and far between, I've already half given up my life so you can walk free and alive, you can't expect me to give up the rest of it too!"

He opened and closed his mouth for a few seconds, gaping at her. "But…I thought you loved…me?"

She frowned. "You _know_ I love you, and I can't believe you think that I'm so shallow that some random stranger could in any way change that!"

"But you're not supposed to sleep with other people when you're married!" He spluttered, his face red with fury. "That's just how it goes!"

"Says who?" She demanded. "I can name at least three hundred cultures in which marriage does _not_ imply monogamy."

"Well to me it does!"

"Well you've got no right to ask for it!" She snapped. "Not the way we live our lives - I can't believe you even expect that of me - I won't love anyone else, ever Doctor, you should know that I couldn't, and that should be enough for you that you won't deny me meaningless pleasures in life when you're not around - I've already given up everything else!"

He shook his head. "I can't believe this."

"Can't believe what - you're being ridiculous!"

"_I'm _being ridiculous? Expecting my _wife_ to be faithful to me?"

"Stop saying that! I'm your wife when it suits you - you totally ignore the fact that we ever even had that wedding most of the time!"

"It doesn't matter," he spits out, "it's not _my_ fault we don't see each other often or even in the right order or that we're all back to front and upside-down most of the time, you're still my wife and that means something to me!"

"You think it doesn't to me? I love you! What does it matter if I occasionally sleep with someone else, we're so much more than that, you know that. And anyway it's not like we're even properly married - that timeline never even happened - and you weren't even really there, you were inside a robot!"

"I _was _there River, in a robot or not I was there, and I did marry you - and now I don't even know why I did that - all you've ever done is cause me trouble!"

She gasped, hurt crossing her face. "I saved your _life_, _twice_," she yelled, full of fury. "I've given up my own - _all_ of my own for you!"

"Both times you had to save my life were _your fault _I was going to die in the first place!" He shouted back at her.

Tears blurred her vision, and River stared at him for several horrible seconds before, so fast he hardly even saw her move, she had whipped a gun out of nowhere and had it aimed at him. "Well maybe I should've killed you properly after all." Her voice was quiet now, and deadly, and the Doctor suddenly remembered with a jolt just who he was dealing with, and reflected that perhaps it hadn't been such a wise idea to have fought like this with the woman who'd been brought up trained, programmed and conditioned to murder him.

He swallowed. "You wouldn't. You _couldn't."_

"I _could."_

It was then that Amy and Rory had walked in, and so here they all were.

"Look," The Doctor says, struggling to keep his voice calm. "Just put down the gun River, we need to talk about this you know that, but we can't do that when you're aiming a weapon at my head."

Her face steely, she doesn't move.

"River," he growls. "We need to _talk_, just drop the gun!"

"I think you've done enough_ talking _Doctor." The click echoes round the console room as she unlocks the safety.

"Woah, woah - River!" Amy and Rory both make exclamations, their hands up in a stopping motion.

Their daughter's eyes flicker briefly to them before snapping back to the Doctor.

"Look, River," Rory tries to be calm, inching towards her, his hands still held out. "I don't know what's happened but the gun isn't going to help anything, I think you should just put it down."

"It will help if I kill him," she hisses, not taking her eyes off the Doctor.

"River," Amy tries. "You're not going to kill him…"

"I wouldn't be so sure," the Doctor mutters, swallowing a bit.

"Neither would I, _sweetie."_

"My God, what the hell happened?" Amy demands.

The Doctor swallows and River clenches her jaw, her grip around the gun tightening.

"A misunderstanding," the Doctor offers, not taking his eyes off River and her gun, nor she off him.

"Is that what it was?" She snaps.

"Led to a slight disagreement and I may have…said some things. River overreacted."

She narrows her eyes and her voice is cold when she hisses out; "You're playing with fire _my love_, I grew up programmed to kill you, you're bringing those buried instincts dangerously close to the surface."

"Alright, River, look," says her mother, her voice shaky, rather thrown at having to deal with her daughter like this…no parenting book in the world could have prepared her this sort of situation. "Just give the gun to me and we can all talk." She attempts to inch towards her but is halted abruptly when the gun is whipped round to aim at her.

"Don't come any closer!"

"River!" The Doctor and Rory shout, Rory grabs Amy to pull her back.

"I'm serious, I'm going to _kill_ him, and you won't talk me out of it!" She has the gun pointed back at the Doctor, and her hands shake slightly. The Doctor notices.

"River," Rory tries to reason with her, "this is ridiculous - look at yourself - this isn't you River. Look, we're here, we're your parents and we love you, just lower the gun and we can talk, we want to help you."

"You know what would help me? _Him_ not existing any more. He ruined my _life_ and he -" She breaks off abruptly and takes a deep shaky breath. "I'm already in prison for it, I might as well do it."

"Why do you want to kill him River?" Amy tries to ask gently.

"Amy, you'll make it worse," Rory mutters to her but she shrugs him off.

"I just want to know why…what happened?"

River swallows, her eyes breaking from the Doctor to flick briefly once more over to Amy and Rory. She doesn't explain, instead just tells them bitterly; "He wants to divorce me."

"She cheated on me." The Doctor quickly counters with a cold voice.

Amy and Rory's eyes widen. "Okay…" says the redhead. "So clearly the two of you have some issues you need to work out…but the gun is only gonna make things worse, just put it down and -"

Amy screams as a shot rings out over her head and a piece of the Tardis falls from the ceiling the other side of the console room.

"River!" Rory shouts. "That's enough, someone's going to get hurt!"

"Rory just stay out of this," The Doctor warns, mentally apologising to the Tardis which groans loudly in displeasure.

"You deserve this," River is panting now, "I should've just done it in the first place, I should never have brought you back." The Doctor's gaze flicks to her gun as it shakes ever so slightly again.

"River, you're not going to kill me," the Doctor says, taking a step towards her.

"Don't! I will!"

"No, you won't," he keeps his voice calm, taking another step.

"Doctor," Amy warns, her eyes wide.

"It's alright, she's not going to do it."

"I _am! I will!"_

"Then why haven't you?"

She takes another breath, and the gun trembles more noticeably.

He steps closer still.

"Doctor be careful," it's Rory's voice, quiet and worried.

The Doctor ignores him, takes another slow step, they are but a few feet apart now and he is close enough to see the tear slip down River's cheek.

He comes to a stop, the gun poking him in the chest but the hands holding it are weak. "You don't want to murder me," he tells her quietly. "You overrode the Nassa spacesuit's weapon systems to so you didn't. You ripped a hole in time and nearly destroyed the universe so you didn't."

"That was a mistake," she says, but she sniffs, and the pressure of the gun becomes weaker.

"You know you don't really want to do this."

She shakes her head. "I do."

He swallows. "River."

She sniffs again, and her hand loosens around hilt.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, - and she - finally - drops the gun.

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><p><em>I'm actually quite nervous about posting this up but like I said I don't know how I feel about the way it came out and would really like some opinions. Even if you hated it, please tell me! Just for the record, I definitely believe that marriage should mean monogamy myself, but River's a fifty-first century girl, I figured she might have other ideas - and it's not like they have a normal married relationship anyway…just wondered about this. And I hope you don't hate me for it, she does still love the Doctor, she's just…her own free person I guess. I dunno, don't know if I actually like the whole idea myself…ha…see why I need opinions! Please tell me your thoughts! And I know this was sort of a cliff-hanger, I've written part of a kind-of conclusion, which is a little more light-hearted but now don't know if I want it to end that way or another way, or just leave it like this for you to make up your own mind…hmm…help!<em>

_xx_


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